


And It Was September

by laviie



Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel), DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Also Aoba being esquisitely Japanese, Character Study, M/M, Mink's POV, Mink's good route from his POV, More Minao for the soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laviie/pseuds/laviie
Summary: You think of his kind voice and his polite manners and the way you took it all from him- the light in his lungs becoming the oxygen you ran on.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't had internet these past days so obviously I wrote Mink/Aoba to warm my heart.  
> It's Mink's good end from his POV, with some changes in events but hey, who ain't down for some minor changes in events?? Just me??
> 
> Anyways this is for my special Minao fellas out there... Hope you like it!  
> Let me know what you think in the comments, reading them would make me really happy!!

You open your eyes to a blank ceiling, your head hurting the same way it does every morning and your legs sore from the cold. You really should learn sleeping with your pants on.  
You look outside your window and the pale blue morning light suggests it's not time for you to leave for work yet. Feeling only partially relieved, you roll on your side and try closing your eyes again, but the sound of dawn's wind blowing through the tree leaves outside your walls keeps a part of your brain awake. You click your tongue in nuisance, close your pillow around your face and let out an heavy, deep sigh. It's time to get up. You raise your heavy body from the bed and stretch your back with your palms on your hips; a pop in your spine seems to ease the pain a bit and you roll your head around for a few seconds as you walk towards the chair you let your clothes on last night. You take your shirt in your hands and a sudden movement outside your window pane catches your eye. You turn your head slowly, and you're met with two deep black eyes staring at you.

  
There's a bird with feathers as blue as the sky tilting his little head just outside your window. You look at it, wondering what he's staring at, and when he does not move in the slightest for another couple of seconds, you click you tongue and start getting dressed. You button up your shirt, sometimes glancing towards the blue bird only to find him still standing there, looking at you, then leave the room.

  
You're sitting alone in a kitchen cold and filled with the smell of coffee. This is just what you're used to- being alone. You look down at your mug of coffee, and you wonder how you were so used to this type of coffee- so diluited and bitter- before you went to Midorijima. Drinking coffee was always an habit of yours, the few times you ran out of it you felt so tired and out of energy you always had to make up aftwerards with an extra dose, and of course your habits- smoke, coffee and a certain distrust towards people in general- didn't stay in your homeland when you left. On the island coffee was the first thing you bought. And God, it was good. Not as bitter as your land's, it tasted sweeter and smoother, smelled like it should have, with a nice back feeling of roasted. Looking down at the mug you're holding, you sigh at the sight of a black liquid barely even smelling like coffee and tasting bitter in such an unpleasant way you don't even want to drink it. So you don't, you pour it down the sink and search your shelves for some tea bags instead.

  
You only find a kind-of-old blueberry tea bag, and you're not really in the mood for it but you swallow your spoilt self and put some warm water in a small pan and wait for it to warm. While you wait, you sigh and cross your arms, looking outside your window at the pinewood gently brushed by the breeze. There's a yellow pale light timidly coloring the lilac sky as a sign on daylight coming slowly and you sigh again. The golds and greens and greys of the sky remind you of two mirrors of your homeland you found back in Midorijima. The only places you could find the peace and quiet your homeland had, the eyes of a pale body and thin hands you knew back in time under the blue skies of Japan, and now would rather deny you miss. But he- a boy way younger than you, his mind house of an open, wonderful mind- was somehow both your troubles and your blessings and now that he's nowhere to be found anymore, you feel his absence as a dark hole in your days.  
Not that you'd be relieved in seeing him again, no. You feel better knowing he's safe in his home with his loved grandmother and friends than being selfish and wishing he was here, under the rugged palms of a man who killed to live for too long in his life. A deep sigh escapes your nosedrills. You think of his kind voice and his polite manners and the way you took it all from him- the light in his lungs becoming the oxygen you ran on. You shake your head slowly remembering of the acts and play pretends you put up to survive yourself after your family's death. You thought about this before but by now you're completely sure your whole existance's meaning would've been different if you hadn't been so heartless.

  
You're uncomfortably aware of your heart beating in your chest for a moment.

  
An unexpected chirping outside your window suprises you, making you slightly jump out of your thoughts. It's the same blue bird from before, still staring at you. You sigh and turn around to take the water pan off the cooktop, silently grateful to the bird for reminding you in time of water boiling behind you.  
You pour yourself a cup and soak the bag in it, now it's too hot for you to drink it, so you wait with your eyes unfocused on your united hands. You look back towards the blue bird and wonder what this little guy wants from you. You think maybe he wants bread, but you remember from when you were searching your shelves that you were out of it. You do have some shortbread cookies leftovers though. You stand up and get get one from a semi-empty box and turn it to dust with your hands, then open the window and leave some just in front of him. He looks at you a bit puzzled, you stare at him right back and point at the cookie dust with your chin. The bird alterns his gaze between you and the dust, he does it a few times before realizing this is all for him. He picks at the shortbread timidly, and after only a few dust pieces he looks at you and flies away. You sigh. You're alone again.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time you're back from work is almost nighttime. The stars are shining bright, brighter than how you were used to see them back in Midorijima- there were city lights blurring their light back there. Here, instead, there's nothing but the cold air and pines whispering at the woodened walls of your house, and they're like diamonds on a black screen, shining bright of pure white. You walk inside, the air is cold and sends silent chills down your spine, so you turn the fireplace on and sit on the couch with your coat on waiting for it to warm the room. The immediate red and yellow lights coming from the fire cracking ease the tiredness behind your eyelids and you let out a small sigh, relaxing your muscles to the point a certain sleepiness starts ghosting inside your head. You decide it really is not the case for you to sleep sitting on the couch- your neck and back are already hurting from the position you work in, a whole night spent like this might as well kill you-, so you stand up difficulty and stretch your back a bit before heading towards your bedroom. 

 

You enter the room you have always loved the most in your house, your bedroom. It was always the place you'd sit in and read your books, think for hours, sometimes study your father's old notes about the nature surrounding your place and the poetries he'd write about the mountains and lakes of your valley. You look a bit around, your fingertips passing on the rough woodened furniture of the room, and stop in front of your window. Night has come by now, and there's no lights coming from outside but the glimmering of the stars and the soft highlights of gold staining the grass where the light of your fireplace reflects outside the window. You almost can smell the cold air outside, filled with the scent of grass and pines you learned to love so well through the years.  
You sigh, and start stripping in front of the same chair that's now like a second wardrobe to you, carelessly avoiding to look at yourself in the mirror. It's not that you don't want to see yourself, there's nothing wrong with your image at all, but you don't want to look at yourself. You don't want to see everything that has changed in you through the years, the way the color of your eyes is not as bright as it used to be and the way your continuous frowning created deep wrinkles in your forehead. You want to believe nothing changed at all and that everything that happened in Midorijima was only a nightmare, a mind trip you went on and nothing more than that, but you know better everytime your eyes cross your hands you're getting older, and the years you spent burning with desire for revenge made you age even quicker. With every scar on your hands you remember of the people you hurt. You close your eyes and sigh, glance towards your woodened statues on your night stand and with your hands open, you pray silently.  
You pray that God forgives you for the things you've done, you were never meant to hurt no one. But, you did.  
With an heavy sigh you go to bed, the warmth of your blankets immediately passing onto you. You close your eyelids and think, think that now you're happy, you really are. Or better, this is the happiest you've been in years. And it's strange, because now you're not as sad as you used to be, but nothing changed and your heart is still cold. Your mind wanders back to the island you left a few months ago.

  
You remember _Aoba_ \- not the Aoba his hot headed friend pronounced, too rough and ungraceful, and not the Aoba his excitable companion liked to fit in every quote; not the cold and detatched Aoba the German brat said so carelessly, either. You remember _Aoba_ , the soft and tender _Aoba_ only he pronounced right, the one that made you feel so much older than your age, because for how much you might have tried to, you wouldn't have been able to say with the delicateness it deserved. You remember him and the blue skies above his head and the way he made them so much better. The way he made everything so much better. You click your tongue and curse your own name- not you family's, they have nothing to do with this- for never being able of understand his kindness and take some of it for your own happiness. You smirk. Your own happiness. The sound of it is just as ridiculous as it can get. You sigh, roll on your side and let out a last, deep breath.  
You will try falling asleep, and pray that tonight you won't see his face in your sleep again.

 

* * *

 

 

You're up earlier than yesterday and it sort of is frustrating but you don't take it too personal and keep on blaming it on the mountain morning light that you're not used to anymore. You glance painfully at the silver package you keep coffee in and are almost tempted to make some, but the sudden memory of yesterday morning's horrible experience makes you change your mind in no time. Guess you'll stick to our old blueberry tea. It doesn't smell too good in the beginning and looks sort of sad but today you're not in the mood for complaining so you make it work along with the carton-tasting cookies that have been in your shelf for God-knows-how-long.

You head to work and it takes you longer than usual- you walk there so you can't blame it on the traffic, it's just tonight you forgot to wear pants again and your legs are sore- but it's not an expecially busy day and barely anyone steps in your shop.

The morning goes by in the blink of an eye and by noon you can't go without caffeine anymore so step outside for a second and get a coffee in a closeby bar. You're disappointed once more by the bitter taste of it and go back to work with the back taste still alive under your tongue. It's a long afternoon you face, only a few customers step in and hours pass by slowly. You're relieved when it's closing time.

  
You close the shop's main door and fit the keys in your pocket, you're ready to walk back home but someone calls your name. You stop. When you turn your head slowly, you're met with the pleasing sight of a famliar face. You see a girl of a tribe that used to be neighbour of your parents, you remember her when she was only a young kid and now she's a grown woman. You almost smile when you see her. You remember your mother used to love her like a sister to you. She's happy to see you, tells you she moved closeby by not much with her family- or what's left of it, the few who stayed in your same land were slaughtered like your parents- and that she thought you would've been still here. You say nothing about the years you spent abroad and simply tell her that yes, now you live around here and work in your own shop as well. She smiles, and sighs relieved. She then seems to remember about something she meant to tell you earlier, and her face grows a bit more serious, without saddening her eyes though. She tells you there's a boy downtown, a foreigner who does not speak your language fluently and wears funny clothes, apparently he's been here for a few days. He approached her today, talking with a small partner animal- the cool ones they have in Japan!, she emphasized,- to translate his questions and asked her about a tall, dark man named Mink. She admits she told him the thruth- you once lived here, that's all she knew-, and repeats not in a way to justify, but in a way she's trying to make you understand that she's sure of, that he looked pure. Pure and genuine, he smiled wide and had long fingers and big colorful eyes. It catches you off guard, you keep silent but thousands of thoughts are loud in your head. Why is he here, why is he looking for you?

You look down and remember.

You don't say a word.

She smiles and tells you she needs to go home- she has two kids, a boy and a girl, and they're _really_ hungry-, you watch her leave and her braids and colorful clothes remind you of your mother's. You stay silent on your way home, watching your step twice and sometimes glancing over your shoulder.

You close your door behind you quickly once you're home. You take a deep breath for the first time since you left your shop.  
You turn on your fireplace- a certain gloominess keeping you on guard in the dark- and seeing clearly the colors and shapes of your living room makes you feel slightly calmer. You take off your coat, sigh heavily and glance towards the black alleyway to your bedroom. You hesitate before taking the first step forward.  
You lock yourself in the bathroom and take off your clothes, wait for warm water to start pouring and look at the warm fog forming around your shower and covering your windows with pale water drops. You step in a few moments later and feel your muscles lightening. You breath.

  
You dry yourself paying not much attention to what you're doing, unfocused eyes on the floor. You stop and think of what you're feeling right now. Your conversation with that girl from your childhood put you in a state of paranoia and you're not sure why yourself. You smirk- you should've known him better, he wouldn't have simply let you get away with your actions. He was always a fuckhead, even if you admit you're suprised he's come so far only for you. Maybe the reason you feel this much of a mess is because you know what you've done, and you know the normal life you're back living is too good for you. You knew the disasters you've caused wouldn't have died along with Toue. But you were not expecting Aoba. He's ages away from his home and does not speak the language of your land. You click your tongue in nuisance at his naive attitude. Just what was he thinking of? He was not stupid, but definitely was not smart enough to pull through for long in a complete foreign country. And with only his robot dog as companion, you don't want to imagine the troubles and poor figures he's done already. Must be frustrating for him, looking for you without even knowing if you're alive. You look up at the mirror and realize you've been worrying too much about him and recollect your cold head. You're not his dad and you're not his husband and have no decisional power on him. If looking for you is what he wants to do, you can let him. You go to bed, your heart settling normally when you walk in the dark, and think that the best thing to do for him is being dead. He'll eventually give up, put his ass back on a plane and fly back home.

  
You tell youself this is for the best and drift off into sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

It's early in the afternoon and a pale orange light filters in through the windows, coloring the wood you're cutting in a wilder shade of auburn and reflecting upon the blue and green stones you'll have to put together in a bracelet later. You roll the little statue you just finished in your hand. It represents a grizzly bear, like the ones that live in the woods on the cold mountains your house is close to. By now they don't mean a problem- you were able to find, with time's help, a path they never crossed- but when you were younger you remember your parents warning you about them on your way back home and you remember you used to be scared. You smile a bit. You put it down and make sure every part is smooth and without spines, realize afterwards the base is a bit rough, so cut the wood and make it as flat as it can get. You're definitely more satisfied than you were before. You're not bad at your job- it was your father's before yours, your grandfather's before his-, you like it and it never stops being entrataining through the years. There's always something new to learn, even if the tecniques you use are shaped from generations and no new methods are ever applied in the realization of your sculptures or jewelery. You get up from your chair with your pine wood bear in hand, enter the bigger room of your shop- the one your customers step in from the main door,- and put the new statue on a shelf next to the few still waiting to be bought. You pay attention and make sure there's no dust on them by passing your finger gently on them. You passed the dust test today as well.

  
You're just about to walk back into your laboratory when a woman steps in. She looks familiar, her features being inimitably your heritage's, and wears the same type of poncho your mother did. This is the type of customer you usually have- people from tribes neighbours of yours, sometimes people of tribes from across the continent here on vacation, almost never simply curious tourists-, so you walk a single step towards her and asks her what she came here to buy. She asks you if she can see some jewelery- she walked in some other shops more in the center of town and you can tell by the tipically woman-quantity of bags she's carrying-, so you show her a few pieces and she seems impressed. She tries almost everything on, your patience strangely not running out as quickly as usual, and with a big smile tells you she'll buy most of your jewelery and some statues as well- the fresh-out-of-laboratory bear's as well. It's not so usual for you to empty shop so quickly, but you're really in need of some extra money to buy some coffee coming out of your homeland so you start packing the necklaces and bracelets and various decorations she bough carefully, making sure they look tidy and as elegant as brown sugar paper can be. While you finish packing some things, she tells you about a strange thing that's been happening in town for a week-or-so now. She tells you there's this foreigner- a pale Asian, apparently- who's been going asking in all town about a man who resembles you a lot, from his description. She says he's cute, maybe a bit clueless, but definitely cute. You're not curious, not at all, in fact would like to keep any interest in this minimal, but decide this might be a chance to know more about what Aoba found out for now.

  
You ask her if anyone knows his name, and she shakes her head- two aquamarine earrings you completed only recently already hanging from her ears, she loved them too much to pack them and don't see them until she arrived home-, explaining that he probably arrived here from not much. She adds with a small laugh that he's out funny hours at night- he probably either comes from far or jet-lag knocked him off hard-, she knows because hearing her some friends of hers work in the town's center. She asks you playfully if you're the lost man, laughing a bit immediately afterwards, and you say nothing but smirk. She might think you're half-laughing at her joke, but you actually are amused by how painfully right lost man fits your description.  
You fit her packages in a jersey bag and she hands you a handful of cash, telling you to keep the extra dozen of dollars. You watch her leave and shake your head with an half smile on your face.

You don't want to brag, but you seem to have this effect on women. It's always been this way. Apparently, your northen man aesthetic hits in the spot everytime. You let out a funny grunt as you put away the money tidily, thinking that, instead, no woman ever really put an enchanting spell on you. It's not that you don't like women- they're more material than men, that's what you believe, or at least, the beliefs you were grown with-, just you never felt like spending a whole life with one. You've had women before, but you're not sure you ever loved one. Your mother, yes, you loved your mother, and you loved your sister. But the list ends there. You never loved a man, either. You stop with a few tens in your hand and try understanding if you've ever been in love at all.  
The face that shows up when " _love_ " is pronounced in your head makes your heart heavy for a second.

  
You click your tongue and head back towards the laboratory, hoping having your shop half-empty and the work it'll take to fill it again will be an enough reason to detatch your thoughts from the boy that's looking for you so desperately downtown.

 

* * *

 

 

Days pass slowly by, affairs seem to have been going incredibly well since your shop half-emptied and you often had so much to do you bought your work home and continued putting together bracelets and cutting wood until morning lights started creeping in. You ended up so tired some nights you could barely sleep- for how much you loved your job, working all day everyday was exhausting-, and started going out always more often more towards the town center. There was a bar you particularly liked, a bar that served foreign coffee, and you liked spending your evenings there, surrounded by the smell of coffee and warm bread for toasts of night shifters.

It's on one of these evenings you're finishing your coffee and a waitress from the staff walks up to you, mindabsently cleaning a table next to the one you're sitting in, and suddenly looks at you and stops what she'd doing. She asks you if your name is Mink, her forehead showing her concern, just not enough to wrinkle in the middle, and you hesitantly confirm that yes, that's what they call you. She confesses there's a guy who dropped by for a few days already always around the same time, and he drinks nothing, just stands at a table and when gets asked what he's doing, replies he's waiting for a man named _Mink_ to show up. She asks you if you know him and if you'd like him kept out of the bar. You almost smirk at her, because those sure are lots of precautions for a kid tall half as you and lighter than your only arm. You don't want to get him in trouble- he's being a bit of a stalker, but in the end he's looking for you: there isn't a way to do something like that without being a kind of one-, so you say that it's okay, you don't really mind, and the waitress is a bit worried, but says nothing. She then adds he's supposed to arrive any minute now, so you thank her, pay for your coffee and leave. You hear the panting of someone who ran at the end of the road, and fasten your pace recognizing painfully that difficult breath.

You and Aoba are in the same town, of this you're sure. You're instead not sure of what to do next. You can't keep on doing this- running is something you wanted to stop doing when you left Toue's corpse buried under his tower's dust-.

  
You arrive home and sit on your couch, your fireplace on, and think that this little boy's crossing the line. He can't simply go around in town and be so obviously foreigner. Not that you have anything against that- it's just, no tourists ever come here. He can become an easy target for anyone. You click your tongue, annoyed once more by how young his mind is. You go to bed with an heavy weight on your chest: you decided this has to come to an end. You've known he was around here for almost two weeks now, your mind got used to the idea of him being here. Now, it's time for him to go back home. You sigh heavily and rest your head against your pillow, perfecytly aware that you won't get any sleep tonight.

  
And it's a long night, filled with doubts and loud thoughts, the one that ends with the rising of dawn. You start sleeping a bit when the sun starts spreading its golden across the sky and wake when it's high up in the sky. You wear your coat and get ready in an impatient hurry- you want to do this once for all. You head towards town where you know Aoba has been, you're not sure he has seen you, so you wait to be the one seeing him. And he's not hard to recognize, his hair sky-blue and his skin dangerously pale among the darker ones of your land's inhabitants.

You look at him for a few seconds, his slender body you've touched every inch of is not valorized by the oversized jacket he's wearing, and you can tell by the red fingertips of his hands he's been suffering the cold. He comes from a sun land after all, used to live a few miles away from the sea, while here it snows often and expecially in autumn it can be pretty chilly. You're used to this all by now, so don't mind it much, but understand why he's been suffering. You take a deep breath, fit your hands in your pockets and turn around, your back probably more recognizable from your face to him.

  
You're sure he's seen you when you start hearing the echo of footsteps behind you, he's following you silently but you recognize the way he walks and his breath. He sometimes whispers something to Ren, but you haven't been speaking any Japanese lately and you lost your ear quickly so don't understand what he's saying. You are way ahead of him, and you feel him starting to panick when your back disappears in the forest. He's running fast behind you, but you know this part of land better than your own palms and are quicker than him even if you're only walking. The forest opens in front of you and leads you back to where most of your childhood was spent. It's a rocky landscape with green stains of pines and oaks, a deep cold lake shining under the gold rays of the early afternoon. You used to come here all the time, it was the ideal place to hide your father's books and sit and read for hours. Your village used to be only steps away from here. You don't have the time to sadden, a breath of wonder behind your back bringing you back to reality. You turn slowly, and you meet his eyes.

  
Aoba is standing with his colorful clothes on, his big eyes filled with shades of sun and his hands red from the cold. His small lips are slightly open as he looks at you. There's silence filling your head for a moment. You remembered he was a porcelain skin kind of beauty, but you never had the chance to really look at him before and realize that God, he was beautiful. Your hands open slowly inside your pockets to the idea of being able to touch him again, but you keep them still. If you touched him now, if you held him close to you, if you kissed him, he'd be happy, he'd fall right into your arms, and you know it by the look in his eyes that he would. And in your heart, you wouldn't resist the temptation of feeling him for the first time and feeling him with a love you wouldn't have understood before now, but you can't do this. You can't do this to him, you can't make him your stress doll, you can't give him you. He deserves better.

  
You're cold towards him, it doesn't take too much to be back acting the same way you've done through the years, and he grows more hurt and serious every word you speak. You tell him to leave, pretending not to notice the way his arms were about to raise for an hug before you spoke, and he stays silent for a while. You know he's come a long way from his home to reach out to you, and you're doing the same you've always done: you're rejecting him. But he won't give up this quickly, he tells you he doesn't care wheter you tell him to leave or not, he will stay here. You remember you have no power on him, not anymore. This is what he wants, and you don't have the right to tell him what's right or wrong wanting. You click your tongue, take him home where you know he's going to stay for the next few weeks if not months. You show him where he can go inside the house and where he can't. He listens carefully, pure determination burning in his eyes. It almost upsets you how okay he looks. You retire in your bedroom for the night, or better, think of doing so- instead stand with your back against your door and listen to the every movement of your guest. He yawns a lot- you believe he had the urge to before as well, but out of maybe pride or pure stubborness he swallowed each and every yawn- and talks a lot with Ren. You listen carefully to what he says and recognize only a few words: _we made it, Ren_. A smile slowly raises to your lips.

 

* * *

 

 

You wake up the morning after to the sweet smell of cinnamon and coffee. You usually would roll in bed another moment, or until your legs stop being so sore, but the thought of your kitchen in the hands of a potentially disastrous cook makes you stand straight up in no time. You put something on- your shirt and jeans, they would need a bit of ironing but they'll do for today- and walk towards the kitchen, you immediately cross Aoba's big eyes and his almost apologetic look. He's holding two big mugs- one filled with soft marshmallows, one with two cinnamon sticks in it- and was evidently setting up a breakfast table, but you interrupted him and ruined the suprise-effect. There are two big cinnamon rolls, looking recently defrosted, and you raise an eyebrow to one particularly covered in maple syrup. Aoba smiles, a bit embarassed, and explains that he went out and did some shopping for breakfast.

His eyes are begging you to sit at the table with him, and you're almost tempted to do so when you recognize the work he did to set up breakfast for the both of you, but you're not ready to give him this much satisfaction yet. You walk past him but stop when you notice the almond color of the coffee in the cinnamon mug. It's not the coffee from your land, this comes from Aoba's island- he must have brought it from Midorijima in his luggage. You reconsider immediately, sit in front of him and take one of the two mugs in your hands. Aoba looks happy- maybe a bit suprised, he didn't think you'd actually sit with him-, he doesn't take his eyes off you. You take your time to drink the coffee you missed so much, and the taste of it erases in a second the frustration of the bitter ones you drank since you went back here. Aoba's bony fingers tap on the table gently, hoping your hand will reach out to them and protect them in the space between yours, but you can't do this, not yet. You leave for work, only telling Aoba you'll be back later in the night, and he's a bit concerned but says nothing.

  
You arrive a bit earlier than usual- you tell yourself it's just a coincidence-, Aoba is in the kitchen when you enter the door and he's sitting on a side of your table set for two. He got some dinner ready, in his eyes there are high hopes of you joining him, but you don't, just tell him you'll go to bed. You'd actually be happy to eat something right now, but you believe you already planted some seeds of peace between you and this is not what you want. You go to bed and hope to sleep immediately, but the noises Aoba does around the house keep you awake until much later.

  
And the morning after you realize there's a new toothbrush and a japanese strawberry flavoured toothpaste next to yours. There's a set of towels with some asian salty snacks's mascotte printed on and a pair of furry slippers immediately on the right when you open the bathroom's door. And there's a new sheet set in the guest room and two comforters piled up on the bed, both colorful in a way you only saw back in Midorijima. Apparently, Aoba suffers the cold. Your guest bedroom was always empty but your new housemate already filled it: the shelves are filled with dictionaries of your language and japanese cooking books, there are some positive quotes printed on squared canvases and there's a blueberry plant as well on the window pane. There are pillows and cushions covering the bed, a plushie of a dog that looks a lot like Ren as well. Aoba enters the door shortly after you with a pair of cotton curtains in hand. He lets out a small awkward laugh when he reads concern on your face. He asks you if you like the new style of the room and starts explaining of how he chose everything carefully following a new style extremely trendy in Japan these days. He looks enthusiast and asks you to help him putting the curtains up, but you tell him that no, you're busy and are going to work now. He's a bit disappointed, but lets you go without interfering. You walk into the living room and everything is tidier than usual, everything is clean and nice and smells like wood soap. You sigh: you got yourself an housewife, but not the submissive type. The cocky-stubborn-and-irritably-kind type.

  
You go on like this for a few days, him cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner and preparing coffee with cinnamon for you. You're getting used to the smell of japanese soaps and to the way Aoba folds your blankets on your bed. Yesterday he added a cushion on your bed for your bedroom to fit more with the style of the rest of your house. He washes dishes by hand- not with the dishwasher- and uses a scented spray in your bathroom and living room. He re-ordered your wardrobe and now you have trouble finding your stuff; for the first time in months, you see your chair without your clothes on it. He spends money on stupid shit and leaves his language notes everywhere.

One night you realize he's dropped one of his furry cushions on your bed and the texture of it is a bit creepy, so you stand up- half-naked, the way you're used sleeping, but don't mind it much since you know you'll go back under your blankets in minutes- and take the fuzzy pillow, head towards Aoba's room- no, head towards the guest room,- to put it back in place, but stop when you see him.

Now there are curtains in his room, but light from outside still filters through and it illuminates gently Aoba's face and the tidy untidiness of his desk and shelves. You walk close to him, and look at him softly. His cheeks are red and the tip of his nose is cold, his eyelashes delicately brushing on his cheekbones. His body is wrapped in two comforters and a small blanket- it looks like it could belong to his grandmother,-, but you can tell he's still cold. You carefully put the furry cushion next to his Allmate, sleeping at his feet, and head back towards your room to get your own blanket. You put it on him, paying attention to don't wake him up, and think that he definitely looks warmer now. You're about to leave, but you hear his voice calling your name. You stop.

  
You turn around slowly, you see his sleepy eyes barely open, his hand outside the fortress of blankets and stretched out towards yours. He looks at you for a moment, you look back at him, and he smiles. You smile back at him, spontaineously, and he looks genuinely happy. You would touch his face and caress him now, you'd want to make him feel everything's okay. But you can't, you can't fall in love with him. It's as you're walking back to your room you realize it probably is too late to prevent your feelings from happening.

* * *

 

 

You're late from work tonight- you had some customers stepping in out of the opening hours, but your money's been running low lately so some extra help might help and every customer, be it on time or not, can be important-, but don't pay much attention to it at all. Maybe it's because you're so used to live alone now it's strange even just thinking someone'd stay up waiting for you. You take your time on your way home, you breath in the late night air that you haven't felt for so long, you feel peaceful.

You look up at the moon and recognize in its pale face Aoba's skin. You remember how soft he felt under your hands and how little strenght you needed to control him, you remember the smell of his hands- a scent of cotton and white flowers- and the feeling of his beating heart under your palms. You sigh. You start walking again, you reach your house not too long after, and you find a thin figure sitting on the stairs.

He looks up at you, he's shaking and his eyes are watery. Aoba, that airhead. You ask him what happened, he talks with a feverish tone, explains that you weren't coming home, he got worried, ran outside and locked the door behind him, but couldn't open it again since his fingers were frozen. You click your tongue, this kid's going to die of cold if you don't do something. You're actually panicking a bit, but keep cool and open the front door, have him sitting on the couch and light up the fireplace. With some light you see even more clearly how red his fingers are and how purple his lips look. You tell him to stay there, you're heading towards his bedroom to get his comforters and a blanket, but he stands up too quickly and you feel his frozen hands pressing against your abdomen. His breath is raspy and you hear him suffocating a small cry.

You turn around, find him facing the floor and think that he's so young. You're so difficult, you know you are. You haven't felt guilty in a long, long time, but seeing him cry and knowing it's all your fault makes you feel half the man you are. You raise his face with a caress, he looks up at you with his lips hidden in a soft bite to keep his voice down, and you soften your gaze a bit- there's no use in looking severe now. He's cold to the touch, and you spontaineously pull his small back closer and shelter him in a warm hug. Your heat slowly passes onto him, and you feel him softening his muscles a bit as you listen to his heartbeat through the veins of his neck.

  
You tell him to go to bed, he's done enough for today, but sadness fills his eyes again and you'd do anything to stop that from happening. He bites his lip and looks at you in your eyes dangerously, you can't look at him right back and fix your eyes on his mouth instead, but the rosy color of it and the softness you know his lips hold only make things more difficult for you. You'd strip him off to the bone but you know you can't do this to him, so you look away and walk to the guest room- no, this is Aoba's room now,- to get him his blankets. You don't hear him following you, so when you turn around and see him standing in front of his room's closed door you jump a bit. He looks beautiful in the edgy way his features make him, his bones graceful and his hair so blue. He walks up to you, he doesn't want to wait for your " _go ahead_ " to go ahead, he puts his hands on your face and looks at you, his eyes burn and you know it shows just how much you want him too. You remember each and every thing you've done to him, and your heart freezes once more. He can't love you. His heart settled with the thought of your hands on him but his feelings depend on the trauma you caused him. He wants to love you. You think this, but start believing maybe it's you you're trying to convince.

  
You raise your hands to free from his fingers behind your ears but you're slower than his lips and the second you feel his mouth on yours, your chest lights up. The light pressure he puts on you makes your legs weak and you sit down on his bed, his knees pinned down on the mattress and your chin rested against his chest. He lowers his thighs enough for you to feel the weight of his ass on you and kisses you again and again- he's longing for your lips the same way you dreamt of for weeks-, he touches you always more and it's making you crazy. You stand up, your hands under his thighs to keep him up, and drop him off on the bed. You take a second to absorbe his beauty, every curve and edge of his body making your hands burn. You get on top of him, stripping and throwing carelessly your shirt aside on the floor; his palms cover your back in cold spots, but the warmth of his cheeks growing red is enough to warm a whole house.

You see in his eyes he wanted this of you- _you_. Not the _you_ you pretended to be, the _you_ he's able to understand, the _you_ that's not rejecting him. And you touched him for the first time under the bright colors of his sheets, the back of your eyelids burning red. You fall asleep next to his warm body and wake up the morning after to the beautiful face of the person you love more than life itself. You hold him tight in your arms and his lips part in a smile when he wakes up. Thank you, he pronounces still with his accent heavy, but it's the most beautiful sound in the world.

  
And you wake up every morning to the same smell of coffee and go to sleep everynight with the smell of his hands on you. You realize it when you look at him in his eyes- he loves you with a burning tenderness the same way you do. He works with you now and is becoming good slowly at putting together bracelets and even if wood's still too hard for him, he learns quickly. His grandmother sends him coffee every week and you're beyond grateful to her for this. You love his hair and braid it carefully every time you can. His body is beautiful and you realize it more with every touch and every kiss on his skin. He loves you.

 

* * *

 

 

You look at yourself in your morning coffee and see that your eyes are bright again. The gold in them is back shining like the afternoon sun. You smile, and know you owe this all to a single special one.

  
You drink your coffee in silence and cross your ankles under your table.

  
You still can't believe this peace in your mind, but you must admit you might as well get used to this.

One thing you won't get used to, your homeland's bitter coffee. But that's now only a sad memory from the past.


End file.
